Helpful Score: 13
I liked this book well enough. I got a little tired of the author trying too hard to be funny, with the constant quippy footnotes and all that jazz. It was funny, just overdone. For instance, you simply don't wear heels on a farm. Parts of it just felt untrue and reaching too hard. Kind of like her or her editor said "ya know, that's just not funny enough, let's throw in some chicken poop and THEN it will kill".
It's a fast read and it's great for light reading in bed when you've had a really long day and just need to escape for a while. And yes, parts are definitely laugh out loud. It was just missing something for me. I'm not even sure what exactly, some honesty or heartfelt-ness. Something.
Give it a read, it's funny, just don't go in expecting some huge thing of the city girl turned chicken poop lady ;)
It's a fast read and it's great for light reading in bed when you've had a really long day and just need to escape for a while. And yes, parts are definitely laugh out loud. It was just missing something for me. I'm not even sure what exactly, some honesty or heartfelt-ness. Something.
Give it a read, it's funny, just don't go in expecting some huge thing of the city girl turned chicken poop lady ;)
Helpful Score: 10
I realized why I didn't like this book much on p. 232 when the author explained, "I'm pretty sure he (her husband) thought that once the girl left the city, the city would leave the girl, but I'm simply incapable of making that kind of metamorphosis. In fact the reverse is true; I'm doing my best to Park Avenue this place up. You might say I'm on a mission to cosmopolitanize the country."
Rather than learning or growing from her rural experiences, the writer remains adamant that Starbucks is a need not a luxury. I think the book began as her blog, newspaper columns, and emails to friends, which I can see as being quite funny. It was when someone said, "you should put these into a book!" that the trouble began because I can't figure out her tone. Someone who is able to write and practice the piano daily must have some level of responsibility and dedication, but she refers to herself as a dumb blonde who doesn't listen to her husband, pays $25 to get her hair blown dry once a week, and lives on a farm for a year without purchasing a pair of practical boots. Are we supposed to like her?
I think she'd be fun to have coffee with (Starbucks of course!) because her tone is so conversational but reading her writing wasn't that rewarding. And, her parenting seems inconsistent. She volunteers in her son's classroom (a plus in my book) although she (pretends?) she can't understand the science. She bemoans the cost and amount of McDonald's toys piling up in her home which made me want to call out "just say no!" when she reports on her kids begging her to turn in to Mickey D's.
There's a nice chapter about the chemical basis of depression. This book got me through a plane ride, but I don't recommend it.
Rather than learning or growing from her rural experiences, the writer remains adamant that Starbucks is a need not a luxury. I think the book began as her blog, newspaper columns, and emails to friends, which I can see as being quite funny. It was when someone said, "you should put these into a book!" that the trouble began because I can't figure out her tone. Someone who is able to write and practice the piano daily must have some level of responsibility and dedication, but she refers to herself as a dumb blonde who doesn't listen to her husband, pays $25 to get her hair blown dry once a week, and lives on a farm for a year without purchasing a pair of practical boots. Are we supposed to like her?
I think she'd be fun to have coffee with (Starbucks of course!) because her tone is so conversational but reading her writing wasn't that rewarding. And, her parenting seems inconsistent. She volunteers in her son's classroom (a plus in my book) although she (pretends?) she can't understand the science. She bemoans the cost and amount of McDonald's toys piling up in her home which made me want to call out "just say no!" when she reports on her kids begging her to turn in to Mickey D's.
There's a nice chapter about the chemical basis of depression. This book got me through a plane ride, but I don't recommend it.
Helpful Score: 3
this book was a well written look into what passes thru a womans mind when she moves from where she is happy to where her husband wants to be of her own free will and then has to adjust. i appreciated this book imensley because i did the same for my husband moving from a big city to a village of less than 900 residents because he missed the small town life. and i had so many moments when reading this book that i just stop an thought "i had that exact same thought pass thru my head!" this book is a decent read and is a thoughtful peek into what women really are thinking when life gives them lemons and they are forced to make lemonade or check into betty ford.
Helpful Score: 2
this book was okay.I think the reason why I liked it was because of the numerous referrals to the area where the author was writing it from. I live in the area and I found it amusing when she mentioned them.
Helpful Score: 2
Awesome book! Susan is very witty, funny, charming and honest in this book about her experiences going from the big city to the sticks! You won't be able to put the book down and will definitely be laughing out loud!
Helpful Score: 1
I think this author was trying to be like Jen Lancaster, but she just couldn't pull it off. I got to page 70 before I gave up.
Helpful Score: 1
This book was really quite funny. But honestly, the best part for me was reading about places near where I used to live in Virginia. I could picture where she was, the landscape and scenery. And Susan McCorkindale has quite a sense of humor. I laughed out loud throughout this book. Highly recommend it!
"Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl" is one of the funniest books I've read in a long time! (Maybe since Erma Brombeck came out? Yeah, I know, shows my age!)
Sure to tickle your funny bone if you live in the country OR have kids, as Susan McCorkindale delights us with not only her challenges faced when her husband transplanted her from living in the city (you know, that place where Starbucks, shoe stores and Victoria's Secret are on nearly every corner) to the "Country" where power suits are traded in for bib overalls and chickens peck her new pedicure to death.
(Like one of the previous reviewers said, why isn't she wearing boots? - Well, honestly I've never been a city girl, never was into high heels and Starbucks scene...But hearing the humorous side of it, makes me understand where she is coming from, and sometimes dumb mistakes make us learn faster than any advice could have done!)
And truly, I believe that self-depreciating humor is the best "good clean fun" type of humor an entertainer can give us.
Besides sharing her own grappling with the new culture she is thrown into (for instance, finding out from the local moms' group that they moved from the city where she thought crime and terrorism endanger her children, just in time to have to buy orange clothing and hats for her children to wear on their own farm when school starts, since they will be leasing their farmland out to deer hunters!)- (I'm from Texas...even to me, that sounds so stupid but it's true!) That's why it's funny.
But many of her witticisms are from looking at what most mothers and often all of us women face, no matter where we live...she's just choosing to see it with humor!
...moving into an old house with no locks on the bathroom doors, while raising two young sons.
...the creativity of young boys who are finally potty trained, but now want to design "art" on the toilet bowl. (Hopefully on the toilet bowl).
...the experience of falling into the toilet bowl at night, when her husband forgot to put the seat down...and being stuck because she was 8 months pregnant!
...and...how we see our bodies!
- About loving "Victoria's Secret":
"Right now for a mere twenty-eight bucks, I can get boobs. Something I've wanted since my best friend Roma returned from summer camp with cleavage..."
All through the seventh grade she stuffs her starter bra with Saran Wrap and powders herself with Miracle Grow, which only "pooled in her posterior" when she took showers. "Thirty years later the real miracle is finding pants that fit my 38DD derriere."
(That was a good one!)
(Like I said, these are experiences of a younger generation...in my generation, we padded our bras with toilet paper, as did a friend right before her 7th grade ballet recital, and her solo was embellished with a long white stream of TP coming from the top of her ballet suit, getting longer and longer as she unknowingly but gracefully twirled into teenage embarrassment Hell.)
This book is a delight, and a tickle and a joy to read. It's both an insight into the younger generation's view of womanhood and of family living, and the continuity of generations of ridiculous situations experienced by mothers while raising children (and husbands.)
Find a copy and let it exercise your tickle bone!
~Enjoy!
Sure to tickle your funny bone if you live in the country OR have kids, as Susan McCorkindale delights us with not only her challenges faced when her husband transplanted her from living in the city (you know, that place where Starbucks, shoe stores and Victoria's Secret are on nearly every corner) to the "Country" where power suits are traded in for bib overalls and chickens peck her new pedicure to death.
(Like one of the previous reviewers said, why isn't she wearing boots? - Well, honestly I've never been a city girl, never was into high heels and Starbucks scene...But hearing the humorous side of it, makes me understand where she is coming from, and sometimes dumb mistakes make us learn faster than any advice could have done!)
And truly, I believe that self-depreciating humor is the best "good clean fun" type of humor an entertainer can give us.
Besides sharing her own grappling with the new culture she is thrown into (for instance, finding out from the local moms' group that they moved from the city where she thought crime and terrorism endanger her children, just in time to have to buy orange clothing and hats for her children to wear on their own farm when school starts, since they will be leasing their farmland out to deer hunters!)- (I'm from Texas...even to me, that sounds so stupid but it's true!) That's why it's funny.
But many of her witticisms are from looking at what most mothers and often all of us women face, no matter where we live...she's just choosing to see it with humor!
...moving into an old house with no locks on the bathroom doors, while raising two young sons.
...the creativity of young boys who are finally potty trained, but now want to design "art" on the toilet bowl. (Hopefully on the toilet bowl).
...the experience of falling into the toilet bowl at night, when her husband forgot to put the seat down...and being stuck because she was 8 months pregnant!
...and...how we see our bodies!
- About loving "Victoria's Secret":
"Right now for a mere twenty-eight bucks, I can get boobs. Something I've wanted since my best friend Roma returned from summer camp with cleavage..."
All through the seventh grade she stuffs her starter bra with Saran Wrap and powders herself with Miracle Grow, which only "pooled in her posterior" when she took showers. "Thirty years later the real miracle is finding pants that fit my 38DD derriere."
(That was a good one!)
(Like I said, these are experiences of a younger generation...in my generation, we padded our bras with toilet paper, as did a friend right before her 7th grade ballet recital, and her solo was embellished with a long white stream of TP coming from the top of her ballet suit, getting longer and longer as she unknowingly but gracefully twirled into teenage embarrassment Hell.)
This book is a delight, and a tickle and a joy to read. It's both an insight into the younger generation's view of womanhood and of family living, and the continuity of generations of ridiculous situations experienced by mothers while raising children (and husbands.)
Find a copy and let it exercise your tickle bone!
~Enjoy!
I'm joining the rest of the reviewers in this grossly over-done book. If the book was half as funny as the author thinks she is, then it would be mildly entertaining. As it was, I quit reading the silly footnotes after the first chapter and quit reading the book about half-way through. By then I felt my intelligence was being insulted. I finished the chapter on her husband and sons' urinary sloppiness and figured that was just totally enough. I hope this is the first and LAST book she's written but am not interested enough to find out.
Fun to read, lots of funny little tid-bits, but not really the information reasource I was hoping for when I bought it.
This is a very funny, sarcastic memoir that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I laughed out loud more that a few times. Susan is a good writer, easy to read, and easy to relate to.
I did not like this book. The footnotes on every page were a constant annoyance as I couldnt get into a groove reading. I put the book down 3 chapters in
It was ok. I read it because the author is a good friend of my best friend. I just couldn't relate that well to the book.
No stars. I really wanted to like this book but it's positively off-putting. I'm out before page 25.
Wasn't what I expected.
